


Still Life

by Annie17851



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 04:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2335685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annie17851/pseuds/Annie17851
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam found some pictures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Life

**Author's Note:**

> Sam found some pictures.

STILL LIFE

 

Sam found the shoe box of photos on the closet shelf when he went to re-supply his ammo bag. It didn't quite register at first, but his hand did a fast double-take as his fingers brushed the rough surface of the box, a soft smile dimpling his cheeks involuntarily. 

Bullets forgotten for the moment, Sam made his way down the bunker’s myriad of hallways, grabbing a beer when he passed the kitchen and setting the box gently on the long table in the library. 

A short swallow of the beer and then Sam carefully laid aside the lid of the box and took out the small handful of photos.

There really weren't that many, and Sam reminded himself for about the hundredth time that he had meant to scan them into the laptop and then put them in safekeeping with the Men of Letters files. He promised himself he would do it this time.

Sam’s smile widened even more as he sifted through the paper pieces of the past. Sometimes the color looked a little faded, making Sam sorry he hadn't stored them digitally a long time ago.

There were a few photos of his father, Bobby, Jo and Ellen. None of his mother. The only picture they had of Mary Winchester was the small one on the back of Dean’s bed, the one where she was holding Little Dean. 

There was one of the three of them – Team Free Will –in deep discussion, sitting around a small motel table, old, dusty books open before them. Bobby must have taken it. Another one, the three of them, striding in sync down a lonely, country road. Standing by the Impala on a sunny day, sharing beers and laughing at a joke one of them must have told. Sam remembered the day, but he couldn't remember the joke, or who told it. Didn't matter anyway, because it was a great picture. Sam mentally thanked Bobby for always wanting to take pictures. 

Dean liked to snap pictures, too. They all did, really.

There’s a picture of Sam and Cas, sitting on a hard motel couch (of course) apparently discussing the translations in a book; both of them have their fingers on different passages in the tome before them on a table, Sam and Cas, acting up in a hospital hallway, patience close to an end while waiting to interview a lab technician. Sam and Cas, standing side-by side in FBI persona, one of the many times they played federal agents for a case. Sam and Cas, eye-challenging each other next to the Impala for shotgun. Sam remembered that day, Dean laughed, a rare, for-real laugh, and Sam let Cas have the front seat, because it was making his brother so happy. 

Sam and Dean, pictures Castiel took when Dean bought him a camera. The ex-angel had been fascinated, took pictures of practically everything. Sam remembered that a lot of them were still in Cas’s bedroom, and Sam would have to find them, save everything. 

Sam and Dean; sitting in the front seat of the Impala, leaning on the Impala with cold beers, going over the next hunt, sitting on the hood of the Impala, that night Castiel told them when all the constellations had formed, pointing out stars that only his angel eyes had been able to see. Before he lost his wings to be with Dean. Sam and Dean, walking down an alley after a hunt, covered in some kind of goo, telling Cas not to take the picture, which he so obviously did anyway. Sam and Dean, bent intently over a table, making new fake IDs for the three of them. Sam and Dean, showing off new guns, standing side-by-side in their FBI suits, digging in the trunk of the car for particular weapons they needed that day.

Sam liked taking pictures, too. 

Dean and Castiel, poring over a diner menu, with Dean trying to explain everything to the angel, enticing him to try new things. Dean and Cas, just sitting at a bar in comfortable silence, watching Sammy hustle pool. Dean and Cas, making sandwiches in the kitchen. Dean and Cas, taken from the back seat of the Impala, during one of their many staring contests. Dean and Cas, making sure each other’s suits and ties were FBI-perfect. Dean and Cas, dozing off on one of the bunker’s soft couches in the middle of Lord of the Rings. Dean and Cas, splitting the last slice of pizza. 

Sam drained the last of his beer, surprised to find it empty already. 

‘I have to show these to Dean and Cas’, he decided eagerly, detouring to the kitchen to get a beer for Dean, then heading outside to the grounds behind the bunker. 

There were about two acres of ground behind the bunker, also owned by the Men of Letters, and most of it was just weedy and abandoned. There were a few trees, though, and one of them was a huge, old maple tree. Sam had put a small bench there, and he went out and cleaned the area occasionally, getting rid of the weeds that marred the space. 

Sam sat on the bench and opened the beer, tipping it toward the small plot of ground at his feet. “Hey, Dean,” he said quietly, dribbling just a little of the cold brew onto the ground by the small headstone. The one that read ‘Dean’ and beneath that, ‘Hunter’.

He apologized to the other stone, the one that read ‘Castiel’ and ‘Angel’. “I know you don’t really like beer, Cas. I’ll bring you something tomorrow,” he promised vaguely. 

“I found all these pictures in the ammo closet,” Sam explained, and went through all of them, one by one, describing them aloud in detail. “I don’t have one for, you know, that last day. When you both went to check on that witch coven.”

Dean and Cas had found the witch coven, of course, and all that had come back to Sam was the Impala, found after a lengthy, fruitless search for his brother and Cas. Found in an impound lot, having been ‘abandoned’ by an old warehouse. Just the Impala. No Dean. No Cas. And Sam knew without a doubt that his brother and the angel were gone.

“Well, that’s okay,” Sam declared, dumping the rest of the beer on the dry ground beside the bench. “I know I’ll see you again. Both of you. Whether we see each other next weekend, next month or never-it doesn't matter. It’s only time. It’s still life, even without you here, and I still go on. You know, saving people, hunting things……”

Sam’s throat closed. The family business didn't exist anymore- there was no family.

A soft breeze ruffled his hair, and on the wind he caught the aroma of someone’s backyard picnic and his heart squeezed painfully in his chest. Burgers. He hoped Dean and Cas could smell them, wherever they were.


End file.
